DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56224#0050
came a successful portrait painter in Washington,
D. C., where he died in 1862. Between his stay in
London and his Washington years, he lived in Phila-
delphia for a while, at the time Raphaelle and James
Peale were developing their still-life style. This Van-
itas' is a still life representing the contents of a poor
painter’s studio piled in a cupboard. The wooden
frame of the cupboard runs parallel to the picture
frame. This device was used as early as the seventeenth
century by such trompe œil painters as Gysbrecht and
was continued into the eighteenth century by Oudry
(fig. 6). Among the objects to be seen besides the
palette and brushes of the painter are books and letters,
and a dish with a piece of bread on it. The books have
such significant titles as Pleasures of Hope' and Pleas-
ures of Imagination” The broken head of a Greck
bust seems to look with empty eyes into the infinite,
and in a relief that is part of the contents of the cup-
board, an Abundantia empties her cornucopia. To the
frame is fixed a sheriff's sale list, every line of which is
legible, and the text is written with sardonic humor.
The style of the painting is vigorous and displays an
efficient use of chiaroscuro. During King’s London
years he evidently investigated the exhibitions and gal-
leries of the English capital thoroughly and became
imbued with the tradition of the Old Masters. It is
known that from youth he was conspicuously sober and
industrious, and that late in life he attained a notable
success as a portrait painter in Washington.
Although his Vanity of an Artist's Dream bitterly
complains about the callousness of the world towards
the aspirations of the artist, King himself could not
complain about neglect. He chose the soft way of com-
promise. This painting indicates that an inner struggle
preceded his relinquishing a claim to immortality. In
an hour of bitter disillusionment he may have remem-
bered one of the trompe Lœil versions of the Vanitas'
theme in European collections and have given vent to
his feelings, adding an element of irony to the concep-
tion that was originally unmitigated gloom. The
trompe Vœil technique gave adequate overtones of in-
tense realism to his pictorial satire.
About twenty years after Nathaniel Peck painted
The All-Secing Eye, a draftsman in a Washington
government office by the name of Goldsborough
Bruff revived the letter-rack type of trompe Fœil in a
water color (fig. 70). Bruff was born in 1804 and died
in 1889, a local celebrity. His lifelong, rather incon-
spicuous activity at the drawing board was interrupted
in 1849 for the two years that he spent in California as
leader of a mining expedition. Bruff was a trustee and
incorporator of the National Gallery and Art School,
established in 1860 by an act of Congress. Although
somewhat erratic and amateurish, he was a man of
courage and keen observation.
Goldsborough Bruff's trompe LVœil shows an assort-
ment of prints and drawings. As such it recalls a famous
trompe U'ceil by Boilly. It is, however, not a framed
picture like Boilly’s painting, but one mounted on a
board. The outside edges of the paper are painted to
resemble the cross section of the board on which cards,
letters, drawings, and prints are placed. The assorted
papers attest to Goldsborough Bruff's activities as a
cartographer, illustrator, designer of coats of arms and
[28]
to the artist. They do not show postage stamps. Thus,
the picture cannot be dated later than 1847, when the
postage stamp was introduced in America. Its style, on
the other hand, suggests that it was not painted much
carlier, perhaps about 1845.
A business card is among the prints, and is half
covered by another sheet of paper. The spectator’s
curiosity is stimulated by this trick. The ‘business,”
however, is not taken too seriously, as is shown by a
painter's caricature included in the motley arrange-
ment.
We learn from Goldsborough Bruff's posthumous
papers that the versatile artist collected coins and sci-
entific curios and wrote about them. The implications
of this are interesting, for the development of the
trompe Lœil in the seventeenth century, we have seen,
was closely connected with the establishment of the
curio cabinet.
In each of these three examples of American trompe
Vœil the heightened realism was made to serve as the
special objective of the painter. Nathaniel Peck ex-
pressed his erratic mysticism when he showed the eye
of God watching over his odd collection of insignifi-
cant items. Charles B. King conjured up the memory
of monastic meditations on the futility of life in order
to dramatize the plight of the artist. Goldsborough
Bruff advertised his diverse skills in a capricious form
suggesting a bizarre personality.
During the second half of the nineteenth century the
strain of irrationalism, which never quite disappeared,
changed its direction. During the reign of Romanticism
it was introspective, but during the heyday of science
it became extrovert. Man, in search of the mysterious,
no longer looked into himself, but outside, into nature.
Of course, he must not look at the familiar nature
outside his window, but at an exotic scene. The quest
for miracles in the age of the railway led to the search
for what in popular travelogues was called ‘the wonders
of nature. The plain and matter-of-fact interest in
nature that prevailed in the times of old Charles Will-
son Peale had given way to an enthusiastic curiosity.
D. C., where he died in 1862. Between his stay in
London and his Washington years, he lived in Phila-
delphia for a while, at the time Raphaelle and James
Peale were developing their still-life style. This Van-
itas' is a still life representing the contents of a poor
painter’s studio piled in a cupboard. The wooden
frame of the cupboard runs parallel to the picture
frame. This device was used as early as the seventeenth
century by such trompe œil painters as Gysbrecht and
was continued into the eighteenth century by Oudry
(fig. 6). Among the objects to be seen besides the
palette and brushes of the painter are books and letters,
and a dish with a piece of bread on it. The books have
such significant titles as Pleasures of Hope' and Pleas-
ures of Imagination” The broken head of a Greck
bust seems to look with empty eyes into the infinite,
and in a relief that is part of the contents of the cup-
board, an Abundantia empties her cornucopia. To the
frame is fixed a sheriff's sale list, every line of which is
legible, and the text is written with sardonic humor.
The style of the painting is vigorous and displays an
efficient use of chiaroscuro. During King’s London
years he evidently investigated the exhibitions and gal-
leries of the English capital thoroughly and became
imbued with the tradition of the Old Masters. It is
known that from youth he was conspicuously sober and
industrious, and that late in life he attained a notable
success as a portrait painter in Washington.
Although his Vanity of an Artist's Dream bitterly
complains about the callousness of the world towards
the aspirations of the artist, King himself could not
complain about neglect. He chose the soft way of com-
promise. This painting indicates that an inner struggle
preceded his relinquishing a claim to immortality. In
an hour of bitter disillusionment he may have remem-
bered one of the trompe Lœil versions of the Vanitas'
theme in European collections and have given vent to
his feelings, adding an element of irony to the concep-
tion that was originally unmitigated gloom. The
trompe Vœil technique gave adequate overtones of in-
tense realism to his pictorial satire.
About twenty years after Nathaniel Peck painted
The All-Secing Eye, a draftsman in a Washington
government office by the name of Goldsborough
Bruff revived the letter-rack type of trompe Fœil in a
water color (fig. 70). Bruff was born in 1804 and died
in 1889, a local celebrity. His lifelong, rather incon-
spicuous activity at the drawing board was interrupted
in 1849 for the two years that he spent in California as
leader of a mining expedition. Bruff was a trustee and
incorporator of the National Gallery and Art School,
established in 1860 by an act of Congress. Although
somewhat erratic and amateurish, he was a man of
courage and keen observation.
Goldsborough Bruff's trompe LVœil shows an assort-
ment of prints and drawings. As such it recalls a famous
trompe U'ceil by Boilly. It is, however, not a framed
picture like Boilly’s painting, but one mounted on a
board. The outside edges of the paper are painted to
resemble the cross section of the board on which cards,
letters, drawings, and prints are placed. The assorted
papers attest to Goldsborough Bruff's activities as a
cartographer, illustrator, designer of coats of arms and
[28]
to the artist. They do not show postage stamps. Thus,
the picture cannot be dated later than 1847, when the
postage stamp was introduced in America. Its style, on
the other hand, suggests that it was not painted much
carlier, perhaps about 1845.
A business card is among the prints, and is half
covered by another sheet of paper. The spectator’s
curiosity is stimulated by this trick. The ‘business,”
however, is not taken too seriously, as is shown by a
painter's caricature included in the motley arrange-
ment.
We learn from Goldsborough Bruff's posthumous
papers that the versatile artist collected coins and sci-
entific curios and wrote about them. The implications
of this are interesting, for the development of the
trompe Lœil in the seventeenth century, we have seen,
was closely connected with the establishment of the
curio cabinet.
In each of these three examples of American trompe
Vœil the heightened realism was made to serve as the
special objective of the painter. Nathaniel Peck ex-
pressed his erratic mysticism when he showed the eye
of God watching over his odd collection of insignifi-
cant items. Charles B. King conjured up the memory
of monastic meditations on the futility of life in order
to dramatize the plight of the artist. Goldsborough
Bruff advertised his diverse skills in a capricious form
suggesting a bizarre personality.
During the second half of the nineteenth century the
strain of irrationalism, which never quite disappeared,
changed its direction. During the reign of Romanticism
it was introspective, but during the heyday of science
it became extrovert. Man, in search of the mysterious,
no longer looked into himself, but outside, into nature.
Of course, he must not look at the familiar nature
outside his window, but at an exotic scene. The quest
for miracles in the age of the railway led to the search
for what in popular travelogues was called ‘the wonders
of nature. The plain and matter-of-fact interest in
nature that prevailed in the times of old Charles Will-
son Peale had given way to an enthusiastic curiosity.